Google algorithm metrics for 2018 – Brief Guide of the main factors

Google algorithm metrics for 2018

So how is Page Authority deduced?

Page rank can be thought of essentially as a series of votes. Every link to a web page acts as a vote and the more there are the higher it should rank in the Serps. If a web page with lots of votes then links to another web page the second web page should also gain some of the juice from that link. This value that is passed from page to page using back links is known as link juice

A key feature is relevance and this is also very important in the context of the site authority. When a link is made to a site that has relevant anchor text to that site it usually carries more weight than a link that is coming from an relevant site using the example brand anchor text and Google may disregard this more in the context of the search results

Google trust

This algorithm is essentially based on antispam. It is focused on preventing artificial manipulation of the search results. And it does the job well, Google has an on-off relationship with SEO’s and this trust factor is integral to that. Big part of SEO is creating great content and a great user experience but the flip side of this in the side that is not shown directly to Google is trying to artificially adjust in their favour the order of the search results

The metrics based around trust are difficult to manipulate and they also reinforce the other metrics to Google. Example things like the actual age of the content and the age of the domain would be classed as trust metrics, the hosting location the number of other URLs on that IP address could also be seen as trust metrics seeing as Google is indeed a domain name registrar. Linking out to dodgy sites and having lots of inbound links from dodgy sites are bad for your website and bad for business and Google has cracked down on this heavily in the past couple of years stop

Website usability

usability is a key factor in Google’s algorithm because at the end of the day users want to find relevant search results when the query Google. To this end Google will rank sites that have excellent on page technical fundamentals and good usability, for example mobile responsive, nice navigation, and a well-structured site. Another factor is page speed . This is a big factor because people will often leave the site if the page loads to slow

Personalisation

When you actually undertake a search on mobile phone, particularly since Google has focused on a mobile first search preference because so many users are actually searching from mobile devices you will see a different set of results then you will if you conduct a desktop search for the same term this is often because sites that are better displaying on more suitable for mobile may rank higher in mobile search the desktop if there is someone else ranks better in desktop for those at area. Additionally localisation searches are also weighted differently and Google my business is another big factor in their algorithms for local searches.

Mobile search

This is a key part of the 2018 google algorithm. Google has announced it’s mobile first indexing preference, and that is essentially meaning that they know that over 70% of all Google searches are carried out on mobile devices, be that tablet, or smart phone.

As a result of this, a lot of work has been done at Google to create a separate index for mobile search results. So the SERPS you see when you search on your mobile, may vary a little from the desktop results. Sheffield SEO company SEO Leaders have been working very hard to unpick the intricacies of the mobile first indexing and are a source of expertise in this field along with some of the other big SEO companies who are leading the way in marketing companies within Google, Bing and even Yahoo. Over 80% of searches are made with Google, but that still leaves 20% on the other search engines, meaning that plenty of traffic can be sourced from alternative search engines.